Over at
Chronicles, Paul Craig Roberts has initiated a discussion about contemporary law enforcement and the people employed as police officers:
Criminals With Badges—How the Police Create Crimes. There is controversy, indeed.
The first professional police force in the United States was established in
Boston. We hear tales of corruption in early big city police departments. While the professionalism and code of conduct of LEOs in big cities like Chicago, Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles have undoubtedly improved since then, incidents of police misconduct do occur from time to time. While some paleolibetarians may go a bit too far with their scorn of police officers, citizens should be worried about the abuse of power if those wearing a uniform and badge are not exempt from the same negative influences and decay that cities in general are undergoing. If the culture of large cities leads to its inhabitants becoming impersonal and rude to strangers, how can it not have an impact on those who will eventually become police officers?
The most important quality necessary for a LEO, as for anyone involved with government, is the virtue of justice, both legal justice and particular justice. LEOs should be treating their fellow citizens appropriately and justly, especially when apprehending them or using force. However, the examinations given by police departments, along with the background check and psychological evaluation, cannot provide direct insight into someone's character. Candidates with [extreme or unsuitable] psychological problems can be eliminated, but it seems to me that those who have not been caught committing a felony could escape detection. (Even people who occasionally take illegal drugs could pass the drug tests if they were smart about it? It would require abstaining for long periods of time, but if they are not "addicted," that should not pose a problem.) Someone who is inconsistent in his lying may be caught in a written test or during the interviews. Still, it seems possible for a candidate with serious moral problems to pass the review during the evaluation process. (If I am wrong, your corrections are welcome.)
[A related question: how has the review process been affected by pressures from without and within police departments to adhere to some contemporary notion of social justice (i.e. radical egalitarianism or affirmative action)?]
A common complaint is that some LEOs behave as they do because they are on a power trip, misusing their authority over others. There are a lot of youtube videos online that purportedly record this, and much space at the
Lew Rockwell blog has been used to highlight supposed abuses. While it is possible that the character of a LEO can become corrupted because of his work, how many others were corrupted to begin with, and escaped detection when they were applying for employment? What sort of moral training can a police department employ for its officers and cadets? An ethics course in the academy would not be sufficient.
Without endorsing everything that Hilary Clinton has said, it does take a village to raise a child in that the child's contact with people outside his immediate family is an introduction to his life as a citizen. The members of a community do have some role to play in his moral formation, monitoring his interactions with others and correcting or praising his behavior when appropriate.
When social relationships have been destroyed or "bureaucratized" then the family must do all of the work, and given the constraints imposed upon parents by the current political economic system, how many of them can do this well?
It is difficult to develop the affection proper to civic friendship for people you barely know, much less civic friendship, in a contemporary
megapolis. This is the case for both children and adults.
While here in California at least LEOs are required to live within a certain distance of their station, how many of them live in the neighborhoods they patrol? And how familiar can they be with the neighborhoods if they are in a car driving quickly by?
With respect to the question of which provides more effective policing, patrolling on foot vs. cruising in a car, it seems obvious that the former is better. Peter Hitchens
advocates a return of the bobby and gives good reasons with respect to crime prevention and the apprehension of the guilty. The foot patrol is necessary for police deparments seeking to develop ties with the community and becoming familiar with other members of the community -- but closer ties with the community is not an instrumental goal, valuable only for the sake of "lowering crime." It is, rather, valuable in itself. Foot patrols would help develop and reinforce civic friendship, and train LEOs to exercise authority with humanity, Confucius'
ren. The LEO would no longer seen as an outsider to the local community, a mere functionary or distant enforcer of the laws of an even more distant government.
Now it may be that patrolling in a car is necessary in areas characterized by sprawl, and the police department cannot afford to have a localized presence. What are the municipalities where these departments are located to do when the consequences of peak oil become prominent?
Could a militia be used appropriately for certain police functions? At least in emergencies? How much training did members of a
posse receive before they could go out and apprehend or kill a criminal-at-large in the "Wild West"? Is the division of function between a militia and a posse necessary? (Not for Plato, in his
Republic.) Can the power of arrest be taken away from ordinary citizens? It seems not. When someone is defending himself from an assailant and manages to incapacitate him, he will also need to restrain him and transfer him to the authorities. Would this not imply a power of arrest? Do small towns need professional police force? Or can it rely upon volunteers instead? (Or on the citizens, either as individuals or as members of kin groups and the like?) Does a professional police force foster the impartial enforcement of the law and the protection of rights? What sorts of checks would need to be in place if family and friends of the victim, or if individual citizens, were to carry out the demands of justice?
While the prestige value of the guardians in Plato's utopia is high, it is not as high as that of the philosopher-kings, who rule and legislate. Is it the case that traditionally this work has been looked down upon? Or is that attitude related to a mistrust of government? Or is the negative attitude due to corruption and abuse of power? How did the medievals view sheriffs and others?
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